put your hands into the fire
by mirai3k
Summary: The thing with Merlin is that when it comes to the things that count, that really count, he doesn't miss a beat. Merlin/Arthur


**title:** put your hands into the fire  
**characters/pairings:** merlin/arthur  
**ratings/warnings/spoilers:** pg; some arthur angst; spoilers for 3x11  
**words: **~2400  
**notes:** future-fic inspired by a scene in 3x11. thanks to imnotjkr on lj for the super beta job!

_x_

The day Uther tells him, it's like the opening of a chasm in the ground, Arthur losing his footing at the precipice and looking down, down, down.

The words latch onto his skin-_child of magic, child of magic_. They make their way into his veins and he can feel the burn, quick and sharp at first as his body tries to reject them like foreign matter. The knowledge, once planted, overtakes, filling his lungs and threatening to suffocate if he keeps up the fight. He tries and tries until he tires, unable to forgive himself all the while.

Born of magic or not, he is only human; never mind that all his life, he has tried to be more.

_x_

Merlin doesn't exactly pry but he's not himself these days, too cautious, too quiet, as if he's aware something has shifted from place.

It's a ludicrous thought but Arthur wonders if his servant knows, if everyone in the castle and country knows, has always known, except for him. He tucks the thought away because he doesn't need the resentment, not now when Merlin is laying out his breakfast and the morning sun hits him from the side, setting his profile aglow. Arthur's senses are still clouded by the haze of sleep so he lets himself take in the sight and focus on this one thing. He tells himself it's because it distracts from the rest.

"_Sire_," Merlin's voice is soft when he finishes, none of that perky _rise and shine _cheer in it. Arthur should be thankful but he can't even manage that.

_x  
_

And slowly, he finds himself no longer thinking of fleeing from these walls and seeking out the witches, Morgause and his own once-sister. Just days before, he would have begged them to conjure his mother once more. Maybe then, he could have begged _her_to tell him lies, hold him close, and take him away to wherever she had gone.

And once he can see past the hurt and hypocrisy, can see _at all_, the burn becomes a slow thing, wholly present but dull. He tells himself that his father is old, that his time is coming to a close; it's as good as in the wind. He doesn't quite know what it will mean anymore but it is _something_. These days, Arthur will take anything.

_x_

The thing with Merlin is that when it comes to the things that count, that really count, he doesn't miss a beat.

Sometimes, Arthur hates him for it.

What he hates more is how he can't keep anything from someone who should, effectively, be no more than his manservant. Arthur often wonders if it would be easier were that the case, often tries to tell himself that it is, _it is_; it never feels like any more than an elaborate lie.

With Merlin, even unbeckoned, the words always spill, toppling clumsily one over the other until all Arthur wants to do is close up into himself with shame at his own lack of tact and verbal restraint.

It's becoming a bit of a problem.

_x_

Merlin is in his chambers, tugging at the clasp of his formal cloak and drawing it away. It's right after a feast for a visiting king, during which Arthur has spoken barely a handful of words and made a decorative mess of his plates without eating a bite.

He's about to ask Merlin to sort out his clothes for tomorrow's meeting but it is Merlin who speaks first. "If you want, you know you can talk about it."

It would be stupid to feign ignorance but that doesn't mean that Arthur's going to take the bait. "I know," he replies stiffly. There's a small, resentful part of him that feel petulant like a wronged child because Merlin never tells him anything no matter how much Arthur has tried to press and pester. He doesn't see why he should keep giving away any more than he gets. It doesn't matter if he still wants to; it needs to change.

When Merlin sighs, Arthur can feel the breath on the back of his neck just as he can feel himself tensing immediately, coiling up tight.

"So you know." At Merlin's words, Arthur turns around, eyes narrowing, briefly wondering if he was right about the _whole world_ knowing. Arthur is about to voice the thought when Merlin holds up a hand, flattens it over Arthur's chest. "I'm sorry. Your father told Gaius, who told me." Fingertips ghost against his collar, and maybe it's a good thing that it stills him because, in that moment, Arthur's not quite sure he wouldn't have struck something down. "Only me. You know I wouldn't-"

"Go," says Arthur, through his teeth. "You're done for the night." He's saying things he doesn't mean again, sending Merlin away because he doesn't know how to ask for the opposite.

_"Arthur_."

"_Magic_." Arthur spits out the word, and Merlin's face falls before him.

"You say it like..." Merlin trails off, shakes his head, and stops himself there. "Never mind." He's folding and setting Arthur's cloak on a chair, looking smaller than he did seconds ago, wounded, pathetic. Arthur can't take it.

"Like what?" Every muscle in his body is taut. He feels like he may burst (and wonders if, maybe then, it will leave him, the stain on his bones that gave him life, this ridiculous living contradiction he has become).

He watches Merlin swallow, throat working slowly before he speaks, and when he does, there's that _voice_. It raises the airs on Arthur's arms, surprises him with a hold he can't explain.

"You say it like it's a vile thing, like it's dirty and hateful and..." There's an old ache in it, like heartbreak, and maybe a darker edge, something _more_.

Arthur finds himself growing defensive in return. "All my life-" He has to stop, to breathe, to not trip over his words. "My father-" _Breathe_, he tells himself. There is years worth of anger, fear, and a swell of all the things that Arthur least wants to feel. They fill his head and body with blacks and whites and reds, nearly blinding, but mostly, he is tired, so, so tired. He could collapse, allow himself to fall apart a little, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. "What does it matter to you?" And the question, once out, manages to surprise even him.

"It doesn't." Merlin is quick to answer. Too quick. His jaw is set and his eyes are open, to Arthur, for Arthur, and in them, Arthur does not know what he sees. He thinks he might but it would take such a leap to say it. "Whether you're born of magic or earth or blood or rust, it doesn't matter because I know you, all of you, the prat, the prince, the future king, the boy who's lost and wants nothing more than to leave everything behind sometimes."

It's a strange, sinking feeling because Arthur finally understands what it means to have your blood run cold. Each word out of Merlin's mouth leaves him feeling more and more exposed. He could drop to his knees, fall on all fours, but it wouldn't save him.

"You'll always be you and I would never change that," and when Merlin meets his eyes, there is such fondness there, such hope, and-

_Empathy. __  
_  
No.  
_  
__No._

Perhaps, it's Arthur's mind playing games with him, seeing what he wants to see as a deluded, defensive trick to not feel so alone.

(Or perhaps, he has known it all along, kept it locked up, tightly and safely enclosed within a part of him, covered it with layers of ignorance and dissociation, because it was the only way.)

Merlin is the one to break the gaze.

He's all soft steps and sure fingers when he closes the door to Arthur's chambers then bolts it. For a brief, irrational moment, Arthur wonders if he should be scared.

This is nothing like the Merlin Arthur knows (except it is, just a little, in this abstract way).

When Merlin comes towards him, his voice is like still water. "It's not-" he licks his lips and tries again, "Arthur_, _I need you to know that it's not a terrible, ugly thing."

With a whispered word that Arthur barely catches, there is gold in Merlin's eyes and the smallest of flames rising in the palm of his hand. It flickers, just barely, then steadies almost immediately.

And Arthur cannot think, cannot breathe, cannot look away.

Some part of him wants to reach out and touch it, take hold of it, and is certain that it will not harm him or even mar his skin, not when it is Merlin who holds it, and so lovingly at that. Arthur knows next to nothing of the magical realm besides what he has been told and he knows better than to gamble with it, and yet, of this odd immunity, he is convinced. For now, he stands perfectly still, transfixed, with his heart caught in his throat and more _moved_ than he can ever remember being.

"This," says Merlin, eyes on his palm and the faintest of smiles on his face, "was the first thing to come to me. I've been told that it may be the last thing to leave." With his free hand, he takes one of Arthur's and curves Arthur's palm in a loose arc, a shelter. "All my life, I wondered why I was like this, why I had this-this gift, this curse. I never understood. And then I met you."

Arthur tries not to think too hard about that, not when each curve of Merlin's face is lit, darkening the geometry of each shadow cast on his brow and cheek and below his lower lip. His eyes are shining through the smile, and if it stings a little behind Arthur's eyes and throat, he can't help it. He has seen monsters and sorcerers and witches of great, wicked power, but nothing like this, never like this. Here, by something so small yet immense, so wonderful and sacred, he is left absolutely breathless.

The light dances through the space between their hands and fingers, shifts its shape. For a fraction of a moment, it flickers against Arthur's palm (and it's warm, like newly-burned candle wax, nearly resolidified, but no more than that) before dissolving into a glow on Merlin's palm.

"You should have told me." He knows well why Merlin didn't. He has been smart not to. Arthur's not angry, does not possibly have the breath or the heart to be, not after what Merlin's just done for him, but he also can't bring himself to think of how it must have tortured Merlin to keep it all in.

"I wanted to. More than anything. You can't imagine how long I've waited."

Arthur thinks he just might. The part of him that has wondered, always wondered but never been able to do more than that, has waited just as long.

"Do you understand now? You're not alone," and there's a change in him. Merlin looks solid, more so than Arthur can remember, and there's a strength about him that Arthur thinks he may need now more than ever. "Never alone," he repeats. "I promise. All this power, it's yours, ours. That's why it can't hurt you."

Arthur nods, silent, grateful, because he's still not doing so well with words. He is, however, perfectly content to stand here and take in Merlin's mirth as his laughter fills the air, nervously at first until it bubbles into warmth, something like relief, and all the excitement and complicity of a shared secret.

"And there's more of it, Arthur," he laughs and laughs, "_so _much more than you can imagine."

Arthur's hand is still loosely held in Merlin's from when the fire went out, fingers tangling together in the space between them. Arthur raises them now and presses Merlin's palm against the side of his face, still able to feel the warmth that goes beyond any natural body heat. He's looking at Merlin when he brings it to his lips. The shock of blue in those eyes in time with the sudden flood of warmth to his lips, it's all a little too much, and Arthur is weak with it.

"There may be magic in there, somewhere," says Merlin, and his hand drops from Arthur's lips to settle right above his heart, "but what you were born of was the love two people shared for a land and for one another. I see it in you, intensifying each and every day, and it's...it's _everything_, Arthur. One day, you'll understand and come to love all those parts of yourself. In the mean time," Merlin adds, sounding suddenly exasperated and unconvincingly so, "it'll be tough but I'll try to do it for the both of us."

Arthur's got a retort at the tip of his tongue because it's easier to do that than to know what to say to such a declaration, but he finds himself curving a hand around the back of Merlin's neck, fingers toying with the knot of that blasted neckerchief. He draws them close, pressing their foreheads together, so that when Merlin speaks, Arthur can feel each word, each breath against his cheek. "But really," says Merlin, so quiet that it's hard to hear, hard to know if he's actually speaking or just mouthing the words, "when that day comes, you are going to be something."

Arthur leans close to his temple then, hovers by his ear, because it's an important correction and Merlin needs to hear it. "_W__e_ are going to be something," and the next bit is quieter, more careful because it's not often that Arthur lets himself hope, "something incredible."

It earns him a smile, a curving of lips that he feels rather than sees. There's a brush of a kiss that catches the corner of his mouth, another below his ear, and of course, because this is _Merlin, _a whisper that leaves him corrected in turn_. _"We already are."

And, for once, Arthur is glad to let him have the last word.


End file.
